


Compaignon

by epithetta



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-05
Updated: 2011-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-19 00:50:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epithetta/pseuds/epithetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which somebody's birthday is forgotten and remembered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compaignon

**Author's Note:**

> Written utilising the whoverse_las prompt 1.7, "[character's] birthday".

In the vortex, they say, every day is your birthday.

No one says it anymore.

You're on an island in the middle of Claxx. From here you can see his feet, pointed, toes flexing. They bend at the ankle and gouge the sand. River's voice is throaty and low, and when it bubbles up over the dune, it doesn't actually say words, just moans. One of her hands rises and you see her red-painted fingertips.

Oh, he's forgotten.

***

Your birthday is all times. Well, less than that and more, but it's hard to convey that to Rose, as she's sitting in your maisonette and murmuring under her breath about men and how they're dreadful.

It will get less and less, you want to say; her special day (which is every day and not) will become more and more like the steam from her teacup: it's there, but you can't see it.

Her hair wilts over the mug, and she whispers into it. Every once and again she straightens and tries to make herself smile, bucking the yoke of expectation--this is what you get when you travel with an alien; it's just a birthday; it doesn't make you special.

"Rose," comes a voice from the hallway, "what's in a name?"

Her head shoots up and she blinks at the flowers waving in the doorway. "Doctor?" The flowers grow to an arm, then a shoulder, and then his head pops past the jamb.

"Little known fact," he says, smiling. "The morphemes comprising the word 'rose' are a curse on fifteen planets." He frowns at the flowers. "On the other hand, roses have long been the gift of choice in the Valtrem nebula, where they are used as sexual currency." He shrugs. "Well, I got these from that little shop on the corner. I love a little shop, don't you?"

Rose is in his arms, and you realise-he's forgotten.

Again.

***

On Gallifrey the Eye of Harmony had fed you and you had reached out to others, living, bending in existence, and there was no need for specialness, because you were one of many.

The Imprimatur had given you Marnal, and he had never forgot. All days are special in the long and short of things, he had once told you, all days and nights and times in between, when you had floated in the vortex together. Marnal had retired you to Gallifrey and then he had forgot.

He comes around the ship gardens often from the time he is a boy. He runs his fingers along the sides of them without asking permission, his critical eye looking not for speed or might or raw power, but something else. "I want one with heart," he says to Rassilon.

"They all have hearts," comes the reply.

"Not like that one," he says, one finger pointing to you.

Rassilon snorts. "Old and malfunctioning." And they disappear down the line of ships.

You miss Marnal.

Years later he comes back not as a boy, but as a man. He glances at the rows of ships and sees you long before he reaches you, sees you in a line of identical ships, all retired and silent.

"Hey, girl," he says, glancing about before smoothing his hand down your side, looking for your door. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a long glass tube with a stopper, silver liquid rolling inside. "For your fluid links," he says, his eyebrows rising. "Come on."

Your doors open with ease, and when his palms alight on your console, you realise Marnal would be proud.

You don't know it yet, but that birthday is the beginning of a second life.

***

"Oh babydoll," Jack says in the dark. "Right there."

His body is a furnace, and you'd let him in the room because he sees past your metal and gears. You pulse your lumens and reach out with three arms, counting all the hairs on his skin, cradling his legs and in between to grasp at his more sensitive parts.

Jack lets you into his mouth when he moans, and you open a little wider for his fingers. Everything is salt and his pheromones, which shouldn't affect you unless you let them.

"Oh," he says later whilst reaching for his trousers. "I got you something." He winks when he pulls the rock out. "Don't ask me how I got this."

He lifts the Zeiton-7 ore and places it in one of the nooks in your wall. You have just the place for this.

"Happy, happy birthday, happy birthday," he sings, "this is your day to have a lot of fun."

***

One would think, and you do think, that being alone in this existence means something, that your singular happiness should have meaning. You aren't prone to sulking. But he's out and about and you sit here in Yammilly. When he returns, lonely and tired and looking so unlike the boy who'd once noticed your heart, he doesn't look at you, even as he tromps about your innards.

That's fine. People have died, and left or split up. Donna is gone and you feel every bit as ancient as you figure you should.

Still, a girl likes to be remembered.

It's on his way to bed when he stops in the doorway, turning back to the console. "Wait," he says, then, flipping your console cover up. "I have something for you."

He settles on the edge of the open casing, dangling feet into wires and pipes, and reaches into his suitcoat to pull out a large flat bottle. Inside the clear glass rolls the silver liquid, and when he uncorks it and tips the bottle into your fluid link tank, it's pure and tastes a little bit like time itself.

"Only the best for my girl," he says softly, though he hadn't needed to say it. His hand slides along the edges of the console cabinet and just the touch fills something hollow in you.

He remembered. He remembered after all.

END


End file.
